Brazil was hoping for an economic shot in the arm from hosting the world's most watched tournament. But they may end up shooting themselves in the foot in terms of world perceptions of their nation. And this could not only hurt short-term tourism but travelers' desires to return to Rio for the 2016 Summer Olympics.

When Brazil was awarded both the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio several years ago, there was excitement and optimism that the world would soon come to learn the best of Brazil, and that, simultaneously, infrastructural improvements would take shape befitting of an economy that had grown to be among the ten largest in the world.

Today, Brazil's Gini Coefficient, which measures the degree of income inequality within a country, is 54.7, which is the 13th highest (i.e. worst) among over 150 nations for which such data is tracked, and the 3rd highest among the 32 nations competing at the World Cup, with only Honduras and Colombia worse.

Large gaps between the haves and have-nots, coupled with broken government promises spawned by a combination of corruption and bureaucracy, creates an air of internal resentment, frustration, and anger among a nation's citizens that is hardly good for business.

And if stadiums aren't completed, airports feel third world-ish, and public workers at subways and museums strike or protest during the tournament, then this creates a massive public relations black eye which the nation may not soon recover from.

Two-thirds of the public expenditures had initially been earmarked for improving local transportation with only one-third going to facility construction. Now that split is more like 50-50. Congruently, a bullet train from Rio to Sao Paulo has not come to pass as was promised, nor have major upgrades to many of the airports...some of which are using tents for terminals. Comforting.

FIFA wanted only 8 host cities, but Brazil chose 12 host cities to spread the wealth of these games. Unfortunately, in doing so, they spread themselves too thin, and it would appear that a lack of organizational structure could severely plague the smooth operation of this tournament.